Starling common – the majority of Russians are aware of this medium size songbird black color with metallic blue-purple tint and fine yellowish streaks. Its body length is about 23 cm, weight 72-76 g. to Meet starlings in Western Russia and East to the Urals and lake Baikal.
Birds nesting in the Central regions, wintering in Western Europe to breeding grounds back very early, followed by the rooks at the opening of spring.Sometimes even March is not over, and starlings are already here – sitting on top of the wet trees, huddled in a little group together. Soon after appear old squaresan, filling the neighborhood with his cheerful singing. Then the males start to carry inside the birdhouse dry straw covering the bottom of the selected dwellings. Then the nests females appear. If they are satisfied with the selected male housing, then finish construction.
And with the end of the first decade of may on the newly dug beds can already be seen the light blue shell. This means that the nest hatched Chicks (like most songbirds, starlings after hatching, the Chicks take out the empty shells and throw them away from the nesting tree). Pure blue, without streaks, the colour of the shell can accurately determine that this shell is from scorching eggs. The starlings nest is from 4 to 7 eggs. The size of eggs about to 29.4×21,3 mm.
Starlings – a typical cavity nesters, and those birds that haven’t found a artificial housing, prepared for them by man, is located in proposional forests in natural cavities or in old holes hollowed out by woodpeckers.
Starlings feed on the ground, in trees and even in the air. With the arrival wander through the inlets, and then fly to newly dug arable land and orchards, where they are looking for earthworms, slugs, larvae, beetles and pupae of butterflies. During this period, destroying many harmful invertebrates and are useful for gardens and arable.
Since mid-summer, in haying time, flocks of starlings, along with rooks and jackdaws fly on the mowed meadows and hunt for grasshoppers and crickets keeping and other insects. On Sunny days you can often see scattered flocks of starlings flying in the air and chasing insects, like bee-eaters or swallows. Apparently their prey in this hunt become hoverflies and small beetles.
There is a period in the lives of these birds, when they make trouble for villagers and owners of garden plots. This happens, when the young broods with adult birds gather in large flocks, and the gardens begin to keep up with cherry. Povezivanja in the garden a flock of starlings can cause serious damage to crops of cherries, and in the southern areas to the harvest of cherries and grapes. The danger of assault starlings increased in rainy weather, when to get insects becomes more difficult. In those days, growers should be especially alert and ready to drive away intruders.
After the flight of starlings on the ground lying a lot of downed birds fruit with a distinctive sharp beak puncture.
Traces of Starling
It seems that the birds have eaten much less than that dropped on the ground (by the way, starlings never come down to earth to find the lost fruit). The lower leaves of the bushes, which feasted starlings, are sprayed with cherry juice and white spots droppings.
Having made a foray into the garden, a flock of starlings Lubit to rest on the tops of high trees. Fumbling under these trees, you are almost sure you will find them under clean, though removed from the cherry compote bone. Apparently digested swallowed whole fruits, birds regurgitate bones like pogodak.
Sometimes they burp, and these pellets, I occasionally found them near the pools, to which the starlings came to drink, next to the footprints of birds. Pohadka Starling about 2 x 1 cm size. It is roughly oval-shaped ball, composed of chitinous fragments of insects, mainly small beetles and shells of small molluscs. In one of pogadac I found the elytra of the Colorado potato beetle.
The footprints of a Starling can be seen on wet roads, on the banks of the pools, near streams in damp sand. The size of the imprint is very similar to drazdany trail, but the Starling back finger is longer from heel to claw 13 mm (Drozdov finger length 10 mm). On the ground the starlings move quickly, making short steps with a length of 11-13 cm Width of trace paths approximately 7 cm the size of the footprint of 4.9*2.6 cm
Rosy Starling
In the southern areas, in gardens and steppes of the black sea, the Caspian and eastward to the Altai mountains lives the rosy Starling. In size and habits it is very similar to ordinary, but he has two-tone paint: brilliant black with purple tint just the head, wings and tail, and the rest of the plumage is pink. The head has rather long crest. Traces of this Starling slightly larger footprints of the ordinary, but the difference is so small that we can distinguish between the footprints of these two species of birds in their places of co-habitation is hardly unmistakable.
The rosy Starling feeds mainly locust eating in the day, about 200 g of locust. Chicks are fed the same food, pre-tearing the locust legs and wings. Additionally, you may feed the Chicks and the fruits of wild cherry, and then scatterings of stones, which settled the bird colony, are covered with brightly colored excrement. These starlings eat a lot of grapes and fruit of mulberry, swallowing the berries whole.
Grey Starling
The far East meets the grey Starling. It is the same size as the common Starling, but more dull dark gray color and with a lightish head. There, where the grey Starling, common no.
We live in Central Asia, the common Myna paws are noticeably larger than rosy Starling. Thumbprint length of 6.6 cm; the 1st finger 2.6 cm, 2nd is 2.8, 3rd – 4 4th – 2.6 cm
